Ubisoft are having a bit of a hardware reshuffle next week, according to Eurogamer, which means major disruption to their DRM servers.

Games that use Ubisoft’s always-online DRM system ping these constantly to reassure the publishers that you’re not a pirate. That means that next week’s switchover will render Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2, Might & Magic: Heroes 6 and The Settlers 7 unplayable for an unknown period of time. The servers are set to go down on February 7. Ubisoft don’t say when they’ll be back up again.

Other games will be playable offline, as long as you’ve completed the one-time activation process. If you haven’t, you won’t be able to activate them for the duration of the downtime. Big recent releases like Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Driver: Francisco, however, will stay online for the duration of the switch-over.

Ubisoft told us that their hyper-strict DRM restrictions (which extend to limited activations tied to your graphics card) are considered to be “a success.” They told us their anti-piracy measures had resulted in “a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection.” For many, next week’s server outages will only reinforce their decision to steer clear of Ubisoft’s games entirely.

Sadly, they probably won't be going out for many more years to come. Console people will continue to buy their games, and PC people will continue to get the half-assed same version with a ♥♥♥♥ING DRM bull♥♥♥♥ that they can't even keep on its own 2 feet. They got it right with SH5's DRM by making it able to be offline but, they had already released a game that was 1/4 finished and was riddled with many bugs and it still is and they given up on that game already. They only care about their Console people and don't give crap about PC. IF they did, they would realize how bad their DRM is, publish finished PC games, and release them without a bloody DRM to go with it. The more people fork over money, the more they won't care about anything else.